


Power Struggles

by toushindai (WallofIllusion)



Category: Baccano!
Genre: Gen, POV Second Person, Protective Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-25 08:18:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6187189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WallofIllusion/pseuds/toushindai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As the new head of the House Boronial, Esperanza struggles to protect his sister from the House Dormentaires' vengeance. (1700)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Power Struggles

**Author's Note:**

> Been trying to pin down something about Esperanza's and Maribel's relationship for weeks now, but Fujimoto's recent [sketch of them both looking very :|](https://twitter.com/shint424/status/706017297597493248) finally kicked me into gear. This is written in second person because I was originally just ranting to myself (I'm not cool) about how awful things felt for Esperanza but it wound up presentable.

You are eighteen and watching your life upend itself. Your parents were just killed. Your younger sister was nearly violated, and she killed the man who assaulted her. You are now the head of your household, and the family of the man your sister killed—the man who killed your parents—are breathing down your neck seeking a story to tell the public that _doesn’t_ reveal his role in all of this. In exchange, they promise to call your sister innocent.

You are eighteen and your sister is _nine_ , and if this is too much for you then it’s too much for her by _far_. She flinches when the flames in the fireplace crackle. She won’t stop crying and you don’t have the time to sit with her because the Dormentaires want your attention; they want this swept under the rug, immediately. You hardly have time to breathe, let alone mourn.

Your aunt comes. She looks after Maribel; she stands at your side when the Dormentaires come by to bargain. They don’t listen to her—she’s your mother’s sister and not an aristocrat herself—but she’s steely and warm and there are no words for how much you appreciate her presence. You are surer than ever that women are by far the fairer sex.

You bargain, as best you can. You remain calm, deferential. Reminders that you, too, lost family that night fall on unheeding ears, and you stop bringing it up. Briefly, you put away some of the more peculiar aspects of how you prefer to present yourself, but it turns out that the Dormentaires regard you with the same scorn no matter what you do. So you take to painting two stars on your face instead of just one. If they need a clown to laugh at, you will play the part.

You bargain until you realize that the Dormentaires are only there to take; when you realize that, you swallow your pride and you give. There’s no question in your mind that you need to make whatever concessions they ask for in order to guarantee Maribel’s safety. Yes, you will leave Madrid and retreat to a city on the Italian peninsula. Yes, you will relinquish whatever power they ask for, because even if the House Boronial’s influence _almost_ rivals the House Dormentaire’s, that small difference is all they need to overpower you. You, without your parents to navigate the intricacies of this political game. You, with your helpless, hurting sister to protect.

You do the best you can, and it isn’t enough.

The House Dormentaire promised you that your sister would be safe and blameless, but you were a fool to hope that they might care about her happiness. “Blameless” turns out to mean that she is counted as dead alongside your parents. She is to be cut off from the House Boronial, and her new identity is blamed not only for Gardi Dormentaire’s death but also your parents’ death _and her own_. You try to argue against this. You plead, more than once, all dignity abandoned. They shrug. She gets to keep her life and they won’t pursue her any further; they don’t understand what more you could want. Before you can think to ask for permission to at least choose your sister’s new name, they’ve decided on one for her.

They leave the table and you sit alone. You bury your head in your hands. You feel your powerlessness as a nausea that keeps you up all night, and you rise in the morning swearing that you won’t let your little sister feel the same way.

You call her to the parlor. Her face is still stained with tears, and for a moment you falter. Then you do the only thing you can think of, which is to explain what will happen to her solemnly, as though the situation were under your control. You try to channel your father’s dignity.

You realize immediately—but not soon enough to take it back—that it’s the wrong thing to do. Your sister searches your face and whatever she’s looking for, she doesn’t find it. You watch her tears dry up, watch her eyes grow cold. She acknowledges your words in a flat, dead voice, and after that she hardly speaks to you. You think she might hate you. A year later you are sure of it, because she scales the balcony of your mansion in Lotto Valentino to speak to you and the sarcasm on her lips ages her by five years.

Her hatred, after everything you’ve sacrificed, is too much to bear. You distance yourself. Monica Campanella begins studying alchemy at the Third Library, and you write to her wishing her well in her new identity. She parodies your formality by wishing you well in “governing this pathetic little city you’ve brought us both to.” You throw her letter in the fire, and later you wish you hadn’t. You wish you could make her realize that this life is worth it if it means that the Dormentaires’ fingerprints might someday fade from around your necks. You pray to God she’ll never have to understand that.

(And when, one summer night in 1709, she appears on your doorstep trembling and ashen-faced and whispering _turn me in_ , her pain freezes you like you never had time to freeze all those years ago. She starts crying when you say _Maribel?_ , and you do what you should have done when you were both still children: you hold her, determined that nothing in the world shall hurt your little sister.)

(This time, you tell her that.)


End file.
